KCM Update

Dear all,
How are you going on? I would like to share some new updates from KCM site.

ICTs Infrastructure: For January 2008, the TS of the KCM pilot seek and explored some software for video conference such as NetOP School, i-visit and also collaborated with Gateway technician on stabilities of the networks. As the result of exploring, the NetOP School software was suggested to replace by other software ecause NetOP School based on the LAN and need a high speed bandwidth (at least 10Mbps) and our CPE Wimax can support up to 1Mbps, and Trango can support up to 10Mbps. Beside of the NetOP School, TS tried to test the other software call i-visit which recommended by PM but this software is need stable internet signal. TS spent his time to work closely with Technician from Gateway Communication Company to configure the network in all hubs to ensure its work properly. Base on the MoU, the project will provide internet signal to MVU, TS was dispatch to see and configure the network in MVU to make it work properly and as the result MVU has to purchase some equipment to make it work.

Research Activity: For February, the research coordinator was spent most of his time in documenting the process and other activities of the project. The achievement of this month are: completed the draft commune profile, three minutes meeting in both version, completed draft process of management committee election, and also published and distributed two iREACH note on Sugarcane and Cucumber.

Content Development: The missing of the Multimedia Coordinator is giving more tasks to CDs to handle, up to the end of February the CDs produced 6 new audio productions (New traffic Law Version 2, 7 vaccination, Tuberculosis, Pig Raising, Sugarcane Planting method and the effective of chemical fertilizer on soil and crop). Only two audio productions were recorded and distribute to target pagoda. In February, CDs try to test the first mobile video show in three communes (Prey Thom Secondary School in Smaong Tbaung Commune, Smoang Primary School in Smaong Cheung Commune and Kamchai Mear Market in Kranhoung Commune). For mobile video show we played the audio of the project and the picture slide show to the audiences before playing the movies. After finished disk one the CD also announce to the audiences about the project and the Hub close by to their village, and services that project offered.

Service Accessing and ICTs Training for Community: February is not different from January; there are many people access to the internet both in HQ and Hub especially in HQ by students. Base on the report of the CFs at Hub level still mostly focus on computer training to students except HQ which postpone the training, but we also found that it’s the first time that elder people came to our hub and try to type their name. At hub level we found that the eldest people come to type their name and listen to Buddha pray through “www.dhamma4khmers.org”. The total money earned from these services both in HQ and Hubs are now up to 100 Dollars and this money is keeping for community.

Project Staff and Management Committee Meeting: In February, the project only conducted meeting one time for project staff meeting to discuss about the progress of their activities. In the meeting, beside of discuss the progress of the project, staffs were asked to review the form that applied and asking to prepare the equipment and services follow up form.
Visioning Workshop: based on the objective of the project which want community to drive this project, the visioning workshop was pointed to do to set up the vision, mission, boundary & strategic partner, out come challenge and progress marker by community its own. Refer to the discussion of project team with our participatory advisor, the dry run have to be done before conducting the real visioning workshop and this decided to do in KEP pilot first (dry-run on February 26 and visioning workshop for KEP on February 28, 2008). I spent my time to attend and assist KEP team in doing these activities, as the result we completed the Vision, Mission, Boundary & Strategic Partner and Outcome Challenge, except only Progress Marker that not yet done because of time limited.

Welcome Visit: This month the project team in KCM welcomed the visit of Ms. Jackeline from Singapore and Marksurman from Tele-centre. The visitors were welcome presented by the PC in KCM about the progress of the KCM up to date and also the trial video conference (audio conference) by the TS. After presentation in HQ the visitors were welcomed by the PC to visit in Two Hubs and a Pagoda to see the actual activities in hub and the equipment for broadcast audio production.

IV. Conclusion:In short, I can say that beside of performance our regularly task of each division, project staff have more clear picture of the project (especially Community Facilitator) and understood of their responsibilities and committed to work. This month because of change in climate, project also faced with electricity exhausted in HQ and some hubs but in the HQ this is not cause problem because we have the generator for supply power to our work.

V. Difficulties and Solution: The climate was changed in February, some rain fall caused our solar panel cannot produce power enough for support to our equipment. In HQ this is not a problem because the project has a generator offered by the central and we just need power for 2-3 hours in the morning. But the problem occurred in three hubs such as; Prey Plorng power run out in the morning of February 27, 2008, Tean Pleung power run out in the morning on February 22, 25, 26 and 27, 2008 and for Beuk Touk normally power run out in the morning for 2 hours.

How iREACH can empower local woman?

I am so happy when I see local woman can work the same as man.
I used to see only man operated the live show at our HQ but today (18 Feb) I see woman can be an operator while she is reading.. wow!!!!!!

Before she work with iREACH, she know nothing about radio production but now pls look at her action in this picture.

SEE, HOW iREACH can build the capacity for local woman!!!!!

a small note from Sokleap!

Feedback survey on audio broadcasting in pagoda on every holy day

At the beginning of project, a baseline and need assessment survey was conducted in the three target commune of project such as Smoang Thbong, Smoang Cheang and Kronhong. A now, the project was produced many audio production related with agriculture, education and health and broadcasted into the community by loudspeaker in 11 pagodas located in target commune of project in Kamchai Mear District. So on, the project want to know the result of audio broadcasted in pagodas was conduct the survey to get feedback from the community for improve broadcasting method. The purpose of this survey was to identify the best method for broadcast, adaptation of audio broadcasted in pagoda, community’s material for get information and percent of farmer to recognize the project. The results of this study will help to the project staff to identifying the best method in the future for broadcast the project production into the community following to the objective of the project.

This survey was conducted in three target commune of project in Kamchai Mear district, Prey Veng province - Smoang Thbong, Smoang Cheang and Kronhong. In doing in this research, 110 households in the community were individually interviewed face to face surround of 11 pagodas (10 household per pagoda). The survey activities consist of survey planning, data collection training, data collection, data entry, data analysis and report writing. The survey was conducted in November, 2007.

Questionnaire was developed base on the farmer adaption of audio production that we broadcasted in 11 of pagodas located in the target commune of the project. Research coordinator and content developer contributed significantly to developing this questionnaire which was verify corrected by project director and project coordinator before conducting this survey. Moreover, the questionnaire was developed to be as simple as possible so as to reduce errors during data collection and recording, and to ensure all questions could be easily understood by both of interviewer and respondents.

The collected data was checked thoroughly and then entered directly to SPSS packages by the data entry team consisting of the research coordinator and one content developer. This task was completed on the week after data collection. This survey was analyzed by SPSS (Statistic Package of Social and Science) and Excel packages. Frequency, descriptive statistics, and cross tabulation procedures were used to produce the outputs of the data survey. The outputs of data analysis were converted into the form of tables and graphics, so that they can be easily interpreted.

As the results of feedback survey on audio broadcasting showed that: very separate between the numbers of people who known and unknown the iREACH project. More than 88 percent didn’t know the project because of project didn’t promote all of activities everywhere of the priority project area. Moreover, for the audio production was produced many audio such as iREACH belong to community, water sanitation and dengue fever for broadcasting into the community but now we broadcasting through the pagoda in every holy day didn’t enough for community to get this information. Total 60.91% didn’t have the audio information of the project and 39.09% only got this information but not clear. Moreover, a little household located surround of the pagoda and many household located far from the pagoda so we could be improve of our broadcasting into all area of our priority project by another method including video spot, note or poster...etc.

In addition, all iREACH’s project staff must be set up the activities plan for actively promotion about the iREACH project to community. Especial must conduct campaign to all target area of the project and in the capital town and producing the other program to promote the local people to participate in the project. Moreover, we should be develop the newsletter of the project objective, project goad and project activities in present and future for broadcasting into the priority area of the project. In addition, we should be communicating with whole authority in the area of project such as village and commune chief to explain them about our project activities for develop their household because they can provide these information to another peoples living in the community.

Best regards

Pin Tara

Research Coordinator

iREACH, KCM, MVU

Feedback Workshop on Baseline and Need Assessment Result

Good Moring Lady and Gentle Men. Very sorry for didn't blog along time because I don't understand with this. First time, I want to introduce myself in the iREACH Project Blog to know and welcome. My name is Pin Tara, a research coordinator of iREACH pilot project in Kamchai Mear district, Prey Veng province. Everybody can call me “Mr. Star” (Sorry just joking).

In first week on Thursday January 02nd, 2008, Kamchai Mear team of iREACH project has performed the workshop on “baseline report and need assessment of CHAMROEUNVITYEA CHUNBORT Community of Kamchai Mear District” at new office located in central of Kamchai Mear district hall. There are 31 (05 females) participants attended in this workshop came from Maharishi Vedic University (MVU), Education Office (EO), Agriculture Office (AO), Public Health Hospital (PHH), High School (HS), PRASAC, Management Committee Member (MCM), and Chief of Kronhong, Smoang Chheng and Smoang Thbong commune. This workshop presided by Mr. Pin Vannaro is a Project Director and facilitated by Mr. Pin Tara is a Research Coordinator of pilot project in Kamchai Mear district. The objective of workshop is to gathering and capturing feedback from community and strategy partner on the data of baseline survey and need assessment was conducted by the iREACH project.

This workshop is mainly focused on baseline survey and need assessment report was prepared by the project to get feedback from strategy partner for complete with these documentations. This workshop also discuss on actual problem in community on agriculture, education and health (identify problem and solution); difficulty for transfer information to the community; and current priority needing of information for developing their community are easy for contend developer to broadcast information to the real community.

As a result, the actual problems in current community are: animal disease (foot, indigestion, diarrhea..), chicken disease (influenza…), low of rice yield (lake of technologies…), insect damage (leaf folder, inchworm, stream borer, grass hopper, brown plant hopper…), lack of alimentation, lack of sanitation, limit of knowledge, lake of health service, miserable, Immigration, and distance from school to home. Moreover, strategy partner was provided feedback and comments to edit some data such as the number of non enrolled children from 6-12 years of age, percentage of community rent rice thresher, household type, name of organization, percentage of home gardening, draft animal use, requirement of information … etc.

The workshop was run smoothly under facilitation and presentation by Research Coordinator and with strong involvement of multimedia team. The workshop was under overall coordination of Project Director. This workshop was finished on time and following to the agenda and time frame and this workshop is successfully due to taking care of the both of facilitator and strategy partner.

Best regards

Pin Tara
Research Coordinator

iREACH, KCM, MVU

Brief information from KCM

Dear everyone, sorry for late to post this information to you all.

ICTs Infrastructure: For January 2008, the TS of the KCM pilot seek and test some software for video conference such as ACCESSGRID and NetOP School. As the result of testing, the ACCESSGRID software did not work well with our network because of this software were not support to Window Vista and most of our project computer are Window Vista basic. For NetOP School, its seemed work well with Window Vista but for the first testing it doesn’t work well and this is under finding result of TS. By the way, after testing these software the TS found that some part of our network especially Antenna at Hub not perform work well, and he had sent this problem to Gateway.
Research Activity: For research activities in this month, the RC spent much of his time in documenting (minute and report writing of meeting and training); preparing community profile and this community profile just complete about 40%. Beside of documenting, the RC conducted a feedback workshop to strategic partner on baseline and needs assessment result. After this workshop, we got some requests to correct the data by comparing to the national figure. The iREACH notes production and distribution were done by RC, those iREACH notes are radish and watermelon planting method.
Content Development: Until the end of January, the multimedia team still misses the MC which gives a heavy hand to CDs to ensure the activities of content development get success. In aiming to develop the content for community, CDs work closely with management committee in identifies the topic for audio production and produces the material for community. 4 audio productions were produced and recorded to cassette for distribute to pagoda, beside of audio production, the CDs committed to produce the video clip on school enrollment which played by community. The Video clip were produced with collaboration of CDs, PC and management committee and used the local resources.
Service Accessing and ICTs Training for Community: January is the month that many people access to the internet both in HQ and Hub especially in HQ by students. Base on the report of the CFs at Hub level still mostly focus on computer training to students except HQ which postpone the training, but we also found that it’s the first time that elder people came to our hub and try to type their name. There are 3 elder people come to our hub in Prey Phlorng to type their name and exited what they see in computer. Even this point occur but we still get feedback that the elder willing to persuade their children to access to our hub.
Project Staff and Management Committee Meeting: this month the project staff meeting have been done as normal, beside of discussion on the result of project activities, all CFs were provided the awareness of a whole project picture. On January 31, 2008 the management committee meeting was organized and facilitated by Mrs. Vong Kannareth Chairwomen of community and this is the first time for committee to lead the meeting. This is a way that we can give hand to community to drive their own community by themselves through delegate one by one task to them. With this process the capacities building also included to guarantee the smooth running of project activities.
Attending meeting and Workshop: Regarding to the plan, the 4th meeting of the project staff have to be held in January. This meeting were attended by all project staffs in both location and this is the first time that all CFs, CDs, RC, MC and PC meeting together with the representative from the center who have PM, RM, Admin and Financial officer. During the meeting we also revise our plan from February to April, discus on visioning workshop preparation, and preparation for launching project at the end of April 2008.

Best Regards,
Dimanche

Not good for internet connectivity

This week, the internet connectivity is not good (stable) even Sophin tried the best... Pls look at hi...

The reason, maybe cecause of the weather...many cloud...

I post this insteat of Sophin because he did not invited yet to the blogger. Zarah, could you pls invite hime.

Best wish,

Sokleap

December Report

First of all I would like to appology for late to post the up date information of KCM.


Monthly Report of December 2007

I. General Information
Project title: Informatics for Rural Empowerment and Community Health (iREACH)
Funded by: International Development Research Center (IDRC)
Executive Agency: Ministry of Commerce (MoC)
Implementing Agency: Maharishi Vedic University (MVU)
Project Duration: August 17, 2006 to April 2009
Prepared by: Long Dimanche
Date of Report: December 31, 2007
II. Summary
December is the last month of the year but for the project it’s not yet. In this month KCM staff pay their best to perform their work with the good results such as we have completed the network security by established firewall, recruited all CFs to handle the hubs. For multimedia team they produced 7 audio productions on pig and chicken raising, seed storage, new traffic law of Cambodia (a continue topic), diarrhea and typhoid fever. In term of research division the RC completed two more iREACH note on Radish and Watermelon Method, three minutes of meeting and ongoing on processing documents. This month the project employed 6 more CFs to fill the spare hub, this can be done also because of the commitment of center in delivering the equipments to KCM.
III. Detail Activities and Results:
ICTs Infrastructure: on December the technical supporter of KCM project completed the configuration of wireless infrastructure and established the firewall for the whole system of the project. A part of the reconfigure wireless infrastructure the technical supporter spent his time in testing the software for the video conference with yahoo messenger and the open sources (access grid) software. But unfortunately, this task was failed because of limited of time and corrupted of the internet access (the internet was cut off while down loading the software). Beside of the regularly training on the internet and email for public, this month the project conducted training on computer maintenance for all project staffs for two days. This training covered on how to work with window vista home premium, computer maintenance and networking with windows XP and VISTA home premium.
Research Activity: this month the activities of research division in KCM are mostly focus on the documenting of project meeting, Management Committee Meeting and produce iREACH notes. This month the RC spent some of his time to verify the process of Needs Assessment and Management Committee Election Process also. As the Result of RC commitment there are three minutes in both version were produced and two iREACH notes on Radish and Watermelon Planting Method. Beside of these activities, the RC has spent time to prepare the logistic for the workshop on presenting the result of baseline survey to strategic partner in advance.
Content Development: with missing of Multimedia Coordinator, the Content Developers in KCM just only continue their work on producing audio for broadcast at Pagoda. As the result, CDs produced new 7 audio productions and recorded to cassette and distributed to 11 Pagodas. Those audio productions were produced regarding to the needs and resulting from management committee such as: New Traffic Law of Cambodia (the continuo topic), Safe Migration, Typhoid Fever, Diarrhea, Chicken Raising, Pig Raising and Seed Storage. All CDs attended the training on computer maintenance and collaborated with RC in distribute the iREACH notes to community also.
Service Accessing and ICTs Training for Community: Up to the end of December, there are 98 students were trained on computer literature and internet access in three village hubs (Tean Pleung, La’ak and KCM Cheung) and iREACH headquarter. For December 2007, CF in 4 Locations of project earned more than 30 000 Riel from services providing to clients both in HQ and hubs.
Project Staff and Management Committee Meeting: in arming to build team work and following up the daily work of the project, in every two week on Friday, all staff come and sit together to share and discus on results, difficulty and find solution of difficulties or any problems if have. For the first meeting on December 21, 07 KCM staff conducted the first meeting which presided by PD, this is the first meeting which all CFs attended also. In this meeting the new CF have time to learn about the project through sharing of activities by the project staff especially the old CFs. On December 31, 2007 the project conducted the second meeting to sum up the results that have been done by all staff which presided by PD. With this meeting, the new CFs expressed their impression after practice and field study with previous CFs in three hubs and HQ also.
Beside of meeting with the project staff, the PC spent time to facilitate in meeting of management committee for two times. Once on the December 3, 2007, this took for November meeting and the second hold on December 31, 2007 which is the monthly meeting of December. During the meeting the PC presented the result of the project to the management committee and management committee also sharing information from community.
Attending meeting and Workshop: this month PC attended in third Global Knowledge conference in Malaysia with KEP PC, RM, PM and SA. For the period of stay in Malaysia we also have meeting with Maria and Sean to discus about next priority work especially for visioning workshop and project launch. With GK3 I met many new thing both working with community and ICTs technology, it really interesting and useful conference.
Staff Recruitment: after returned from Malaysia, PC recruited 6 more CFs to work in other 6 hubs. Among those there are 4 CFs is just get success in the recruitment process of mid December, 2007 they are Mr. Heng Sambo, Mr. Mao Phanin, Mr. Chhoem Pov and Mr. Moen Mai. The previous success 2 CFs are Mr. Chou Samuth and Mr. Pich Ratha, so mean right now, we have all staff to implement the project. After success in recruitment, all CFs attended in computer maintenance and networking with windows XP and VISTA and they also have time to trained more on internet access and email at headquarter. To ensure their capabilities to manage their own work at hub, they were dispatched to the field practice with previous CFs at Tean Pleung, La’ak and KCM Cheung to learn on daily processing at hub.
IV. Conclusion:
With all above result, we can say that even this month is the busy month of the year but the project staff still committed to finish their own work successfully. Just only a few things that not yet complete because of their personal case of busy. This month is also the first time that all project staffs attended in training together and also the first time which all see each other and sharing knowledge together.
Best Regard,

Dimanche